Old Man Sorrow
by Tey'Imena
Summary: In which the Enterprise is doing a routine visit to a new planet when things go wrong. "Only the dead remain here."


More st_xi_kink meme fic. This one's sad, folks. Also, Kirk/Spock!

**Warning:** Character death, drunk heartbroken sex (m/m), stuff like that.

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**Old Man Sorrow**

* * *

_you're not supposed to be here._

It was the voice that first told Spock all was not as it seemed.

_Who are you?_ He asked, sliding into a meditative state that enhanced his mental facilities.

_you're not supposed to be here. why are you here?_

There was something like desperation in the other one; Spock could sense it. Odd, that, as this was simultaneously a telepathic communication and yet not. Spock reached for the brief transmission again, sensing the obvious urgency with which he had been contacted.

_I am here, as well as the other members of the _U.S.S. Enterprise_'s away team, as per overarching orders of exploration from Starfleet and the Federation. Once again, with whom am I conversing?_

_i'm not important, not really. not anymore. never was. you shouldn't be here._

Now it was frustration in addition to the previous sentiments, as well as something else that translated like panic. Or was it sorrow?

Spock settled deeper in his meditative trance, hoping for a more full connection that might bring some answers.

_On what basis do you make such a statement? We mean you no harm; as previously stated, ours is an exploratory mission. You need not fear hostilities from any of the crew._

_how long have you been here?_

_I do not see how – _Spock began, only to be interrupted.

_how long have you been on this planet?_

And now there was urgency, such urgency, throbbing in the words and in his mind as if whoever was speaking could turn the sensation into a corporeal form that might reach out and shake the Vulcan.

Spock was silent for several moments after, weighing the various benefits and drawbacks of continuing this situation. On one hand, he had no idea to whom – or what – he was speaking. And yet… the creature, or person, seemed genuinely concerned for the well being of himself and the rest of the crew…

_Three Federation Standard days. Two by local planetary measures._

A vibration sounded through Spock's brain, startling him out of the deep trance, but not completely out of contact with the other. It rang throughout, sounding not unlike a despairing moan.

_take your living and go before the toll is demanded of you!_

_A toll? If such is the local planetary custom, then by our own orders we must comply with such – _

Again came that low, wounded moan in his mind, now a soft keen of white noise, whispering throughout the channels of Spock's mind.

_only the dead remain here_

And then the connection was cut. The Vulcan reached out in an attempt to recapture the slim bond, but there was nothing to find.

Spock remained in his meditative trance, setting his mind to puzzle over the rather cryptic and undeniably odd statements shared in that brief mental contact. No answer was forthcoming, and it galled him to admit that such results were frustrating him.

It was the vague sense, several minutes – or was it hours? – later, that someone was near him that finally brought the Vulcan out of his trance, and Spock slowly opened his eyes, raising them to meet silver ones.

"You are the one with whom I was communicating," he said calmly, gazing at the creature before him. It appeared to be a humanoid female, a rather young one at that (she looked like the images of human adolescents), and she seemed rather insubstantial – in fact, Spock would describe her as being quite incorporeal, though oddly tangible in some senses.

_yes, i am._

"To what purpose are your repeated statements on the necessity of our departure?"

_you're alive. living people aren't supposed to be here._

"You mentioned a toll. Again, if such is the normal planetary custom, by our own orders we must obey," Spock stated, not having moved from the position he had assumed earlier, having the sense that if he did move, the ethereal figure before him would vanish. The silver eyes of his visitor, however, saddened at the mention of the toll.

_i didn't come up with it, i swear,_ the girl protested, though her lips never moved. Her answers reverberated straight across a superficial mental link, as they had when she had questioned Spock earlier. _only the dead remain here._

"Then why the toll?"

_the dead don't pay the toll, how can they? the living do. everyone was alive once. i told you – only the dead remain here. take your living and go; you cannot stay. you must not._

There was silence between the two of them that stretched on for moments neither of them bothered to count.

_i'll do my best to buy you enough time to gather yourselves._ This was said softly, with eyes like moonshine gazing beseechingly into Spock's darker ones. _i can distract Kari, but only for a short while._

"Kari?" Spock asked, immediately sensing a difference in the mental link between them at the mention of this person.

_she collects the toll. the toll is necessary for the living to live, she says._

And Spock knew that the young woman would say no more on the subject. So he inclined his head once in thanks, and watched as the girl turned from him and faded away, off on her self-imposed mission of delaying a situation that appeared to be inevitable. He retreated once more into meditation, having the sense that he would soon discover all of what the girl had been talking about.

And when the mental growl sounded, a wordless snarl of a name he did not catch, Spock opened his eyes, calm brown orbs rising to meet wild golden ones.

There was a rush of heat, of flame and sand, and then -

There was nothing.

* * *

_wake_ _up!_

Jim opened his eyes to see pools of silver staring back at him, distraught.

_i tried, i did. i told the one like fire encased in ice, i told him to take his living and go and i would buy what time i could but it was not enough!_

"Whoa!" Jim almost yelped, trying to throw himself backward (but failing, as he was already flat on his back and thus resorted to rolling quickly sideways and jumping to his feet). "What the hell?"

By this point, the rest of the away team was awake, and several phasers were trained on the intruder.

_i told him to leave, to take all the living and go before Kari demanded the toll._

Jim held up one hand to the away team, and though they did not lower their phasers, they did back off slightly from their instantaneous attack readiness.

"What do you mean, you told him to leave? Told who?"

"Sir – " one of the security personnel began, but Jim had already realized exactly whom the … girl, for lack of a better word, was talking about.

"Spock." The word escaped Jim on a breathy sigh, and he stared at the young woman.

_i told him, i told him what would happen, but he did not listen! now you __**must**__ listen to me, please._

"Where is he?"

_he is paying the toll. i told him to go, but he would not listen, and…_ Here the girl looked down, silver eyes sliding away from Jim's blue ones. _Kari found him. he demanded to be the one, i could not stop it. Now please, go!_

"Where is Spock?" Jim repeated. The ethereal woman shook her head emphatically.

_i will not let you throw away what he is doing! you must leave, and now!_

"Where," Jim said, softly but firmly, "is my First Officer? Tell me where he is, and _now_."

The young woman looked up at Jim, silver eyes beseeching him to listen to her – and then her eyes widened in shock and fear, and Jim started forward instinctively. But the young woman threw up her hands, motioning for him to stay back, and when he halted, she looked at him with sorrow – and eyes that were turning gold.

_no…_

The words transmitted on a silent whisper, even as the apparition's mouth dropped open to match the mental sounds. And then there appeared to be a tug on her midsection, as she was dragged backwards at a bewildering speed. Jim and the remaining away team immediately leapt to follow her rapidly disappearing form, one ensign pulling out his communicator and hailing the _Enterprise_, telling the crew on board to call Doctor McCoy and have him on standby, and to be prepared for a possible emergency transport.

"I cannae!" came Scotty's agonized voice.

"Do it, Scotty!" Jim barked into his comm., trying to keep the diminishing figure of the young woman in his eyesight. "There's – "

"We're losin' yer signals, Captain! I dinna ken what's wrong, but they're fadin'!"

Jim spared a second to give a venomous glance up at the sky above, absently wondering why the Universe chose _now_ to throw a wrench in the works.

"Spock's missing, Scotty. We've almost found him," Jim replied in a patchy tone, still running flat out.

"Captain – dinna ken – nae simple – " Scotty's voice over the comm began to short out, and Jim grimaced but continued forward. The girl was still being dragged backwards, but there was a slump in her posture that indicated she wasn't fighting whatever had a hold of her. Jim added on a burst of speed, granted to him by another rush of adrenaline. He couldn't lose sight of her – she was his only link to Spock.

"Captain, look!" gasped out one of the away team, pointing ahead of them and to the left.

There appeared to be a building in the distance, growing larger as they approached it. Jim shortly realized that they were being led to it as he watched the girl's trajectory change direction to head for it, whatever it was.

"Come on!" Jim cried, urging on his team. A sinking feeling had begun to coil in his stomach, and as much as Jim ignored it and refused to acknowledge its presence, he could not deny the sickness it left at the back of his throat, the closer they got to that building. There was a strange energy in air, heavy and sharp, and it added to Jim's apprehension.

He had no idea how long it took them to reach the structure, only that one moment he'd been chasing the apparition down the flat, open stretch of deserted dirt and then the next moment he was sprinting across loosely packed sand, and the same apparition – now looking almost distressingly solid – he'd been chasing appeared to be slumped against a wall.

Next to Spock.

"_Spock!_"

The cry burst from Jim's throat, and he headed straight for his First Officer – only to run straight into _absolutely nothing_ and get knocked back on his ass.

"Captain," gasped out a Security ensign, who came to a halt by Jim's side. "What happened – "

"So, there were more of you," said a new voice, cutting across the doctor's outraged panting. The new voice was distressingly cold, slithering over the team's ears and up their spines like a snake of ice. And immediately, their attention swung briefly away from Spock's sprawled form to see where the voice came from. As they did so, they got their first good look at the interior of the structure they'd dashed into.

It was a wide, open space, rather like an arena or coliseum. The walls rose high above them to the remains of a ceiling (pieces of that same ceiling littered the arena floor in various places, great chunks of stone and petrified timber). The floor was sand, loosely packed, hot and dry. To one side stood a large seat, a throne; an imposing and grandiose work of black, glittering stone unlike anything else humans had yet discovered. And it was occupied.

Another young woman sprawled arrogantly across that throne, one leg sprawled carelessly over the arm of the throne while the other draped over the seat, foot resting in a surprisingly dainty manner upon the dais that the throne rested on, while she reclined her body against the other arm of the throne. Gold eyes coldly regarded the away team, and the woman calmly played with a section of deep red hair. It was vaguely disturbing, the color of her hair, somewhere between blood and fire.

"Who the hell are you?" Jim demanded, rising to his feet. He didn't bother to brush the sand from his trousers; he had more important things to deal with. One red eyebrow arched upwards, and the young woman stopped playing with her hair.

"So straightforward," she murmured. "No matter." She stood with fluid grace, towering over them all.

"I am Kari."

"Well, Kari, what are you doing with my First Officer?" Jim demanded, turning to fully face her, bringing all his authority as a Federation captain to bear on her. And all that happened was that her eyebrow arched a little higher.

"Such an imperious little fellow," she said clearly, head tilting to one side as she gazed calmly down at Jim. "It is not so much what _I_ am doing with him, but that _he_ has agreed to pay your toll. I will expect you gone momentarily," she finished, and the away team (except for Jim, who never took his eyes off Kari) exchanged puzzled looks.

_only the dead remain here_

The whisper came from the other side of the arena, where the other girl was still slumped over. But her head was raised now, silver eyes tinged with Kari's gold, and they gazed at Jim and his team with sorrow, and guilt.

_only the dead remain here_

And then Kari was no longer standing by the throne, but was suddenly by the girl – and Spock.

"Stop telling them things, Catyian," Kari said, and the girl – Catyian – flinched.

_Kari – _

"No. I know you warned them, Catyian. So they know about the toll; it's only right that they should pay it. Besides," and here Kari reached down with surprisingly gentle fingers, placing them tenderly under Catyian's chin to gently lift her face up, "how else then shall they repay you for the information?" Kari's voice softened, and even her eyes seemed to lose their frigidity for that brief moment before turning back into orbs of golden ice.

_Kari, please – _

"Now." Kari let Catyian's chin drop from her hand, ignoring the girl's plea. "It is time."

"Time for what?" Jim demanded, stepping forward, only to run into that invisible wall once again. "Hey! Hey, you, Kari! What are you doing?" Kari did not reply. "Hey! What the fuck do you think you're going to do to my First Officer?" Jim slammed one fist against the barrier, not caring that it would most likely bruise. "Hey! _Hey!_ Answer me, dammit!" Lead settled in his stomach, in his gut, in his lungs, making it hard to breathe, hard to do anything other than simply dread whatever was coming.

Kari ignored Jim, and began to walk towards Spock. He had straightened himself out, getting to his feet, brushing off his uniform, and now stood in his usual pose – something between attention and not quite parade rest, hands clasped tightly behind his back. The Vulcan gazed calmly and unwavering back at Kari. The two of them said nothing.

Jim continued to shout. Neither of them appeared to hear him, and his cries became all the more ragged in their desperation.

"Spock, come on, don't do this, please, don't be a martyr, we don't need any martyrs, dammit Spock I can't lose you, please not you too; get _away_ from him, witch! Hey! Hey! _Hey!_ _Listen to me, dammit!_"

Kari raised her hand, and time seemed to slow to a crawl as Jim watched that pale appendage rise, rise, rise; slowly rise until it was level with Spock's face (Jim hadn't realized until then that Kari was the same height as Spock, as a Vulcan, as a man).

"_Hey!_" Jim shouted again, banging on the barrier with both fists, kicking at it with his feet, slamming into it with his shoulders, his hips, using his whole body as a bettering ram.

Spock's eyes finally deviated from Kari's, and he looked Jim fully in the eyes. One Vulcan hand rose, fingers splitting into an easily recognizable 'V.'

"Live long and prosper, Jim," Spock said quietly, and Jim couldn't deal with the lead twisting in his stomach like a living thing, like a snake, climbing up his throat and making him sick, so sick –

And then Spock's body jerked, once, twice, a third time, descending into shaking, terrible convulsions that rattled his body so mercilessly that his arms flapped bonelessly.

"_Spock!_" The cry ripped itself from Jim's throat, and he threw himself bodily at the barrier holding him back from his dying First Officer – from Spock. "_No!_"

And then it was over, hours later (but really, it was only moments; time had stopped but was now proceeding along normally and god, how could that word exist in a universe without Spock?), Spock's body sprawled on the sand like a marionette with the strings cut, and Kari stood over him calmly, no expression at all upon her face. She wasn't sorry, wasn't remorseful, and she hadn't even enjoyed what she'd done.

Jim hated her then, more than he hated anything in the universe. She had killed Spock.

_**Spock was dead.**_

That thought finally penetrated Jim's mind, with all its ramifications, and Jim sagged down sharply, one of the security ensigns only just barely catching him before he hit the ground.

"Spock…" Jim whispered, still staring at the Vulcan's body.

"Sir," whispered the ensign who held him (Tuh'lawe, Jim's mind supplied absently). "Please, sir, don't give out on us now." The words were whispered unconsciously, as if the ensign didn't fully intend for Jim to hear them. And in truth, Jim wasn't really focusing on those words, anyway.

"Get up," he mumbled, staring at the still form. "Get up. Spock! Get _up_, Commander – that is an order!" The words tumbled from Jim's lips, and he hardly cared if his team thought he was losing his mind – he _was_ losing his mind!

All he could see was Spock, crumpled at the feet of that monster.

There was a suddenly crackling burst of noise from his communicator, Scotty's voice breaking through. " – ignals! I've got yer signals again, Captain, an' I dinna care what ye say but I'm beamin' ye up!"

And then Jim couldn't see Spock, couldn't see that monster Kari, couldn't see Catyian or the sand or the arena, all he could see was the golden lights of the transporter –

" – im? Dammit, Jim, for the love of God what the hell happened down there?"

That was Bones' voice. But Bones wasn't on the planet… Slowly, the interior of the _Enterprise_'s transporter room came into focus as Jim blinked slowly. Ensign Tuh'lawe was still holding him up.

"…Bones?" came Jim's reply, slow and stilted, as if he barely recognized the man before him. McCoy's face tightened, and he ran his tricorder over the Captain with new urgency. "Spock…"

"Captain?" Scotty asked quietly, suddenly unsure of how to deal with the broken-looking man being supported by an ensign.

"Spock…"

"What is he going on about? And where's the hobgoblin anyway?" McCoy demanded. Tuh'lawe winced, and the other three members of the away team flinched and looked away.

"Commander Spock…" Tuh'lawe swallowed, and shifted the captain to a more comfortable position before beginning again. "Commander Spock is dead."

There was silence.

Jim seemed to collect himself, and pushed away from Tuh'lawe's stabilizing hands to stand on his own. Without a word, and without looking at anyone, Jim strode from the transporter room.

"What do you mean, Spock's dead?" McCoy asked in a hoarse voice, staring after his best friend.

"The Commander… Kari killed him, Doctor McCoy, sir."

"Kari? Kari? What the hell is a kari?" the CMO demanded.

"Not 'what,' sir, but 'who,'" Tuh'lawe replied. "We don't know, really. Just… she was there. And Catyian. And…Kari killed Commander Spock."

McCoy was silent for several long moments, and then he turned away with a muttered curse, dragging his hands down over his face. "You couldn't even bring the body back?" the doctor asked roughly, not looking at anyone.

"We… couldn't get to the body, sir," one of the other ensigns piped up slowly, staring at her feet. "There was a barrier of some sort, and Mr. Scott beamed us up just after it happened."

McCoy swung to face Scotty, who was fiddling with the transporter console as a look of deepening desperation crossed his face, until finally it fell into sorrowful resignation.

"I'm nae gettin' any kind o' signal from Mr. Spock," the chief engineer said slowly, sadly.

McCoy closed his eyes briefly in a pained wince, imaging how Jim must be reacting to having watched his First Officer die. And McCoy knew there would be more than just the guilt of a captain losing a valued crewmember swirling around his friend's brain; the CMO wasn't an idiot, nor was he blind. Jim's heart would be broken, too.

"I'm going to go check on the captain," McCoy said dully, dealing with his own sense of loss. For all his sniping at the Vulcan, the doctor really did respect the man. Losing him was going to be hard on a lot of people, not just McCoy and the Captain.

Everyone in the room nodded and began shuffling about their business, the rest of the away team deciding to head for their quarters for the time being. They would be debriefed…later.

* * *

_TBC_


End file.
